


Shades of You

by BeesKnees



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, M/M, Victors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 03:07:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1088875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeesKnees/pseuds/BeesKnees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victors have no beginning and no ending. They bleed into one another: Finnick Odair, Johanna Mason, Katniss Everdeen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shades of You

Finnick Odair’s games are some of the earliest that Katniss remembers. Watching the games is something that none of them can avoid, but, for whatever reason, Finnick’s games were the first that Katniss was old enough to perceive that she was being made to watch something that was odd. The Reaping in the square took on another level of meaning as she watched the good-looking boy from District Four cut down the other tributes with easy swings of his trident. He smiles as if on cue, and he is gracious and charming when he is crowned victor. 

Katniss watches safely tucked in the warmth of her father’s arms. Her eyes are owl-like, taking in every motion, her body unerringly still. 

“You’re safe,” her father murmurs to her eventually, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “You’re safe here.”

It’s also the first time that Katniss is aware of her father lying to her. (It’s a long, long time later that she realizes that it wasn’t so much a lie as a desperate belief.) 

It’s the first time that Katniss is old enough to be afraid of the arena. It’s a strange sensation that curls in the pit of her stomach, a fear not unlike the one she felt when she fell through thin ice last winter and it took nearly two minutes for her father to scoop her back out. She hears Prim and her mother singing in the next room. She suddenly envies the way that Prim has no awareness of the arena. 

After they televise Finnick Odair’s victory interview, her father takes her out into the woods and begins to teach her how to use a bow and arrow.

 

In District Seven, Johanna watches Finnick’s games wedged in between her brothers. They’ve all been spared another year, so they’re free to boast with each other once again, tossing back bravado about what they would do this pretty boy from District Four. Johanna, still a year too young to be reaped, does not join in during this annual Mason ritual.

Instead, she watches the clean motions of Finnick’s arms, the way he pivots at the waist and is able to swing the trident so that he never has an exposed space on his torso. He’s agile and dexterous, and he may look pretty, but he moves with deadly purpose. None of her brothers would stand a chance against him, Johanna thinks silently. That is the tragedy of District Seven. Their brute strength counts for very little.   
I won’t ever be this weak, she thinks. She unfurls her hands in front of her, able to feel the muscles shifting throughout her arm. 

Johanna always needs to run after watching the games. She feels too pent up after hours of watching blood splash toward the screen, of watching limbs being torn from torso. She races through the forest, twines her body through the trees, and listens to the sound of her own breathing. She tries to quell the sound of the screaming in her head, and simply reminds herself, I am not weak. I am not weak.

 

Finnick’s Victory Tour is one of the most lavish most people have ever seen. Because he’s from a Career District, Johanna thinks, but it’s not One or Two, so we can stomach him more easily. This boy is supposed to appeal to everybody. Even though he killed the boy from Seven last year; Johanna can’t remember his name, but she does remember the sound as Finnick’s trident tore through his throat. She remembers the stark lines of Finnick’s body, the hardened look in his eye. She wonders how many people saw that look, or if they were just content to ignore it, because they want to love Finnick so much. They see the golden boy, not the killer. 

The Capitol sends extra money to Seven to make sure they greet Finnick in style. 

Finnick Odair is 15 years old, still younger than most of the tributes who will be reaped this year, and significantly younger than any other mentor. He’s grown since his games and his shoulders are broader, but his smile is still the same. He waves when he disembarks from the train. 

The speech is awful as always. Johanna feels her skin crawl as she stands in the middle of the crowd, wedged between her brothers once again. (Another is now too old for reaping, but Johanna’s name will be in there for the first time. Her heart beats fast every time she thinks about it, a fluttering sensation like when she’s been running for too long. She grows angry with it every time it does this and thinks, I   
would cast you aside if I could.)

Finnick Odair doesn’t read from cards, but is polished anyway. He doesn’t apologize for killing their tribute, but thanks them for helping to bring him home. Johanna Mason hates him.

Most of the victors are quiet and polite during the feasts that follow, but Finnick is talkative and engages readily with everybody around him. He ends up arm wrestling one of her brothers, who does defeat Finnick easily, and they laugh like they’re old friends. He does a few drinking games with boys who are six, seven years older than him, and he tries to throw an axe after a few of the rowdier boys show him how. He misses the tree by a lot, all of the clean lines of his body rumpling away. He smiles and shrugs after that, all Finnick Odair charm.   
By the end of the feast, everyone’s forgotten that Finnick murdered the boy from Seven. 

Johanna Mason watches him with shrewd eyes. She doesn’t go near him. 

 

Katniss’ dress is too stiff. She feels as if it’s sticking to her skin, holding her in place, and she fights the need to fidget. Prim is sitting perfectly still, and she knows if she moves too much, she’ll get a reprimanding look from her mother. 

She hadn’t wanted to come to the Victory Tour. She had wanted to flee to the forest to where the bows are hiding, but her father had caught her as she went under the fence and steered her back home with a heavy hand. 

Most of the Victors are uncomfortable in Twelve. They’ve never seen such poverty and they’re usually eager to get away, to move on. Finnick Odair isn’t like that, and Katniss thinks he must be the best fucking liar in all the Capitol, because he acts like he’s from here. He eats the food without complaint, doesn’t look too long on how small and weather-worn their homes are. 

When the feast is over, Katniss hurries home, and refuses to think about Finnick Odair. The next morning she and her father walk over to the Mellarks’ bakery to get bread for the week. There is a line, like there usually is today — the day when the miners get paid. But at the front of the line is Finnick, who apparently is not on the train, but is out in the middle of District Twelve buying close to 100 cookies from the Mellarks, who just keep placing them in bags.

“He’s been doing this all morning,” the woman in front of them says in a low voice to Katniss’ father. “Gone around around to nearly all the businesses and bought something.” 

Her father makes a low noise in the back of his throat, but doesn’t comment on the matter.

Why, Katniss thinks as she watches Finnick lean on the counter, chewing on a cookie with extra frosting on it. Why does he bother? 

 

Finnick Odair is in bed when Johanna Mason wins her games. The new Head Gamemaker has requested his presence almost every day of the games. He isn’t mentoring this year, and he wishes he was back in District Four, that he could have been left alone there. (Annie, he thinks. He wants there to be for Annie. Her first games after her own. Those are always the hardest.)

But here he is, in Seneca Crane’s bed once again. He’s splayed on his front, and Seneca is finally still as he watches the solid wall of screens in front of them. These games have been unparalleled success (not like Annie’s). And Seneca is already preening, which is why he’s down here in bed with Finnick instead of seeing the games through to the end. 

The final death of the games features Johanna Mason and a massive boy from District One. It’s gory and vibrant and everything the Capitol loves in their finales. Johanna sinks her axe into the boy’s head and the sound is visible through the speakers, a pulpy sound that makes Finnick flinch. He’s grateful that Seneca has his back to him. Johanna thrusts her arm up into the air, blood dripping down the blade of her axe and onto her face. She thinks she’s won something, Finnick thinks dully as Seneca lets out a delighted laugh. 

“To Miss Mason,” Seneca says wryly, turning back around. He taps out thin lines of powder along Finnick’s back, ignoring the blood that’s already welled between his shoulder blades. 

 

Katniss had been certain she was going to be reaped this year. She had felt her name being closed in upon by taloned fingernails. She retreats home feeling more relief than she thinks she has any right to feel. 

Prim hides her hands behind her fingers as they watch this year’s games, tears welling up in her eyes with each death. 

When Johanna Mason wins the games by sinking her axe into a boy’s skull, Prim has nightmares for a week. Katniss stays up every night until Prim starts to cry. She gathers her sister up in blankets and carries her into her own bed where they sleep curled up together. Katniss sings soft songs to her, strokes her fingers through Prim’s hair and tries to quell fears that won’t go away for years and years to come. She remembers her father telling her that she’s safe here, she’ll be okay. 

She wants to tell Prim those words, too, but any time she says anything remotely close to them, they always stick in her throat, barbed. 

Katniss has her own nightmares, but she doesn’t let herself shout in her sleep. She locks her body down, doesn’t let the fear conquer her. In her dreams, Prim goes into the arena against Johanna Mason, against Finnick Odair, against all the Careers of District One and Two. In her nightmares, Finnick Odair sinks his trident into the vulnerable flesh of Prim’s stomach, and smiles while he does it, makes the Capitol fall in love with him. Katniss always wakes up covered in cold sweat, her own stomach aching with a phantom pain. She never knows if it’s hunger or what her body imagines the piercing edges of a trident would feel like. 

 

Finnick has been given to citizens of the Capitol since he was 16. At 20, he’s used to that. (He’s ashamed, sometimes, that he’s used to it, that it’s just something he’s accepted.) 

At 18, Snow adds another responsibility to Finnick’s ever-growing list. After the Victor of the 69th Hunger Games is cleaned and stitched up, Finnick is sent to him. Finnick comes away from the encounter with a broken arm, a fracture in his foot, and he can’t walk properly for several days. He feels the eyes of the other Victors on him, and he wonders how many of them know. 

(This is the part he can’t abide, when he’s given away to another Victor. They’re the only family he has that he doesn’t need to protect, that he can turn to with the truth, and Snow is taking that away from him by putting him beneath even the rest of them.)

Annie’s games were strange, of course, and so, when Finnick is given to Johanna Mason hours after her own games, he doesn’t yet know what to expect. Especially not with this girl, who easily split people in half and smiled while doing it — not smiling for the Capitol, but smiling to mock them. Finnick has heard that her games have received the second highest ratings ever — only ranking beneath his, which still hold top tier. 

Snow sends him to her while she’s still in tribute housing. It’s strange to go up to the seventh floor. He feels the building shift emptily around him, waiting for the next batch of children it will swallow up. He feels the ghosts of his own lost tributes when he passes by the fourth floor — year after year of lost tributes. He wonders how Mags can bear coming here. Inherently, they can never save more than they lose. 

When he reaches the seventh floor, Johanna Mason is already on guard. She watches him through suspicious eyes, her mouth a flat line, fingers obviously itching for an axe. (He knows that phantom sensation, that quiet wish and despair that he could carry a trident with him always.)

He feels ridiculous when he smiles at her. It’s an action she doesn’t return. Her eyes drag over him, over all the places he isn’t wearing clothing. But her gaze isn’t the same as everyone else’s; there’s nothing desirous in her gaze. She doesn’t want to possess him. She’s looking at him like she would an opponent, as if she’s thinking about all the ways she could kill him.

(He remembers what it’s like to come out of the arena. To have to go back into society when all you can think about is how your blood feels when it thrums too quickly in your veins, when you’re reacting on instinct, clawing in a desperate attempt to live. That doesn’t just go away. It doesn’t fade. And he thinks that’s probably why Snow sends him to the victors almost right away. He’s an acclimation stage.)

“What the fuck are you doing here,” Johanna asks finally, all the emphasis on the curse word. She shifts, all the motions in her hips, like a predator getting ready to pounce. 

She’s smarter than the last one, he realizes. That boy had been on him by now, pushing him against the walls, hands tearing, seeking. Johanna Mason is too wary for that. He doesn’t have an answer ready, he realizes. How do you tell a victor you’ve been sent to them for a free fuck? 

Johanna’s mouth twists up to one side, half snarl. And then she scoffs, the expression melting away quickly. She looks at the wall to her right for an instant.

“Did you want me to fuck you, Odair?” she asks, and she’s suddenly too close, the distance between them minute. She pushes at his chest, and her words are taunting, but he can see it in her eyes — she’s scared. She gets what’s happening. She’s too smart. She knows she’s next. His last victor didn’t understand that, not the entire time they were together. He didn’t understand that Finnick was both an invitation and a warning. 

“If you like,” Finnick answers, smile coy, voice sugar sweet. The mask is too well worn to take it off now.   
She hits him, and he doesn’t bother to move. She doesn’t have any nails, so she doesn’t break the skin, but she’s launched herself at him in the next instant, clawing wherever she can reach, more animal than girl. He can’t tell if she’s screaming or if it’s just a thousand warnings going off in his head. (She can kill him, he has to remind himself.) She’s red hot, arching and spitting. She does want to be fucked, Finnick realizes, but she’s not going to give that power to him, so she settles for what she can take instead; she has to steal it. It can’t be given.   
“Get out!” she screams at him, knocks his head back against the door. “Get the fuck out!” 

He retreats when she gives him enough space to. 

It’s the beginning of their friendship, although no one would ever guessed just how close Johanna Mason and Finnick Odair would become based off that moment. 

Finnick walks into the hall and spits blood out of his mouth. (At the time, he thinks he’s never met a victor less like him. She takes where he gives; she’s raw where he’s plastic. It’s not until after they’re both reaped a second time that Finnick realizes there’s no one more like him than Johanna Mason. They’re shades of each other.) 

 

The 74th Annual Hunger Games. Finnick wonders how if there will ever be a time in his life when he doesn’t revolve around the games. Every moment he isn’t in the Capitol, isn’t procuring sponsors, isn’t watching children from his district die, is stolen.

He and Johanna fuck roughly the first night they are in the Capitol together. This is their mourning ritual. They cling tightly to each other even as they maim each other, blaming each other for everything the Capitol does. 

She claws into his back, long scratches that he knows he’ll have to have healed; he starts out on top, but, as usual, he winds up on his back as she rides him, the lines of their bodies free and wild. 

Afterward, they lie in bed together, stare up at the ceiling, and feel the building ache around them.

“It’ll be One or Two this year,” Johanna says out loud; she won’t give voice to this anywhere else, won’t acknowledge that she’s even aware of who was Reaped outside of her District. Finnick says nothing; when they’re together, he doesn’t have to preen and pretend to have something to say. When they’re together, she doesn’t have to scowl and act like her words are too good for the masses.

She knows he agrees anyway. 

Another victor from One. Another time he’ll have to go smile and let himself be fucked to pieces by some arrogant child. The victors from One never see what comes afterward. He doesn’t understand why. He’s never dared to ask Cashmere or Gloss why they don’t warn them. It doesn’t matter. Maybe they can’t; hard to be the pride of your district when you’re getting fucked on your knees. Maybe they do know, don’t believe it will happen to them. Sounds like something that would happen in One. 

He pushes his body out of the bed and goes to shower. 

 

Across the city, Katniss Everdeen watches recaps of old games. She watches Finnick Odair slice flesh with a well-loved smile; she watches Johanna Mason tear people to shreds with a maniacal smile.

Can I be that cruel, she wonders. Do I have a choice?

(She doesn’t wonder if they did. Not yet.)

 

Johanna and Finnick are breaking the rules. Finnick should be at a Hunger Games party hosted by Caesar Flickerman’s wife. Instead, he and Johanna are in a hotel room together. They’re not touching. They lie on their stomachs, shoulders brushing, as they watch the games on the television together. Katniss Everdeen is holding a handful of berries. 

Johanna isn’t breathing; her heart is pounding in her ears, and she remembers what it felt like to race through the forests of District Seven. She doesn’t understand exactly what is happening, but she knows that it’s important. She feels it in the way that she had told herself she wouldn’t be weak when she watched Finnick kill. She feels it in the way she felt the blood slide off the edge of her axe. (Finnick has always said that she is too smart for her own good, but not clever enough to keep herself safe.) 

She chances a glance at Finnick, and he looks remarkably unguarded, like he does sometimes when he first steps off the train from Four, and isn’t sure how he got here.

In the weeks that follow, when it’s announced that the 74th Hunger Games have broken all viewing records, everyone will start to ask, Where were you when the berries happened?

I was back in the arena, Johanna thinks. I was back in the arena, but this time Finnick Odair was there, and we thought we were stealing something with Katniss Everdeen.


End file.
